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Summer Reading: New Jersey's Books and Authors -- The Moon Before Morning

August 21, 2014

W.S. Merwin's latest book is an evocative study of age, memory, and the natural world

While we're on summer hiatus, recharging our batteries and coming up with new story ideas, we want to make sure that you have plenty to read. That's why we'll be posting excerpts every day from New Jersey books and authors. We'll be back, rested and ready, after Labor Day. Meanwhile . . .

“I think of old age as being a time like the others,” the 86-year-old W.S. Merwin recently told the Associated Press. “It has revelations of its own that you can’t come to any other way.” The Pulitzer-prize winning poet’s most recent collection, “The Moon Before Morning,” is brimming with such revelations. A study of age, memory, and the natural world, the collection reflects upon a life lived in many places, from New York City where he was born to New Jersey and Scranton where he was raised, to Hawaii, where he lives today.